H4a mtDNA in Syria - possible Crusader lineage, or delusional LARP?

[sacha]

I am an ethnoreligious Maronite Catholic from the Syrian Coast, with mtDNA haplogroup H4a. My father is being tested for his Y-haplogroup right now, but it is not back yet, so I have nothing to go on besides what I know about my family history and what I have read. Excluding a single cousin who I share a maternal line with, the only matches I have with H4a[...etc...] mtDNA are all of European descent on their mother's side, i.e. mixed. The only thing I know about any family outside of Syria is that a few hundred years ago, a Maronite man from Cyprus came back and married one of my great-great-etc-etc grandmothers, but again, that does not explain it.

On my 23andMe test I show up as "100% Levantine," so any descent in the last ~8 generations is for the most part ruled out. On modelling methods like G25 I have a very weird fit on everything, but after inspecting that for a bit I think it would have nothing to do with this and instead is just me being more Anatolian-shifted than a Lebanese Maronite; indeed, I graph somewhere between modern Lebanese Christians and some ancient Anatolian populations.

As for the mtDNA haplogroup, I will be honest- I have tried looking into as many options as I can to find a reasonable explanation for this, but I am always led back to this haha. I am mostly posting this because I am not that experienced in haplogroups et cetera, I am more so interested in actual genotypes, so if you know more about this than I do and see anything, please tell me about it, I would love to know. I figured posting this on a forum with a higher European history interested population would be helpful regardless for this European-dominated haplogroup.

I think it is pretty obvious that many of the commonly thrown-about arguments like "descent from enslaved European women" would be very odd to make in this case. I know that there is a recorded occurance of H4a1 in 7th century BC Egypt, but I do not seem to fit into that either even as I tried to look a little more into the sequence I have myself.

Thus... this kind of crackpot theory that my family likes to claim. I have made this map aligning what I know about my family history with crusader sites in the region. Sorry for how it looks, I was mostly making it for myself but I ended up wanting to share. Here are the translations for the captions:
1. Magenta - Historical Crusader Site
2. Arrow pointing up --> Antioch, Maronite 'homeland'
3. Arrow pointing down --> Mount Lebanon
4. To big purple circle --> "In the circle since maybe 1000"
5. To smaller blue circles --> "In the blue circles - records of my family in these regions, the oldest one confirmed maybe 1500 (for both areas)"
6. To the orange blob --> "Maybe ancestors, not confirmed"



I do of course acknowledge there are other possibilities, about a trillion of them really, yet so many people suggest this I'm starting to subconsciously believe it I guess. Honestly, it seems like a stretch even to me, but...there were some women who came during the Crusades, and it's not unreasonable I think to assume that at least some assimilated into the local Maronite Catholic population over time, even if they don't have a real trace on the autosomal results of the region.

Obviously there is no way to know for sure, but I may as well sharpen my Occam's razor while I am here. Thank you very much my friends and I would like to hear if you have any ideas about this, even if it is just laughing because I may have boxed myself into a corner and am missing something much more clear.

[Leto]

I don't know very much about mtDNA but damn, 100% Levantine. Meanwhile Muslim Palestinians are mixed as a mofo, some are like 30-40% Egyptian with a bunch of other shit!

[mashail]

I don't know very much about mtDNA but damn, 100% Levantine. Meanwhile Muslim Palestinians are mixed as a mofo, some are like 30-40% Egyptian with a bunch of other shit!

I totally agree with u Palestinians are very very mixed ! I've seen many Syrians that got 100% Middle East on YouTube which is also very interesting.
I guess Syrians r the purest levantine.

[sacha]

I don't know very much about mtDNA but damn, 100% Levantine. Meanwhile Muslim Palestinians are mixed as a mofo, some are like 30-40% Egyptian with a bunch of other shit!

I totally agree with u Palestinians are very very mixed ! I've seen many Syrians that got 100% Middle East on YouTube which is also very interesting.
I guess Syrians r the purest levantine.

I'm going to use this as an opportunity to 'dump' things I did not include in the original post because I realize they are probably relevant, and also because I haven't really compiled this all in text yet so it is helpful.

I think there are two main factors that make specifically Christians in the Levant almost universally get >90% Levantine, and Maronites like me get 100% or very close to it.

1. Any injections into our gene pool are not recent— though we do marry European Christians fairly often nowadays, we spent a shitton of time in isolation from other groups. This is less so but still significant amongst those like the Greek Orthodox and Melkite (Greek Catholics), who for the most part cohabited but did not intermix with other groups, but us Maronites just straight up lived in the mountains away from everyone else. We're greatly against consanguineous relations— we have no provable problems with inbreeding/cousin marriage as a population, unlike some of our neighbors— but we're kind of our own, 'unmixed' ethnic group for the most part. You see this also with some smaller Muslim groups and the Druze, even more so in the Druze because they don't allow conversions in or out, or intermarriage. Seriously, they have chopped

2. Because of 1, we are often used as the "Levantine" samples for these types of DNA tests, so other admixture components from our history (Canaanite/Phoenician, Anatolian, Cypriot, minor Byzantine/Greek and Caucauses elements, maybe some mixed in Crusades as well) that could be theoretically identified by markers are factored into 'Levantine' populations— so obviously someone who is just like the sample will get 100%. We are still very similar to the most native modern Levant group though, the Samaritans.

I have all the normal Maronite genetic markers, but being a Syrian Maronite I have a little bit less Canaanite influence and higher Anatolian influence. I put a PCA below with me are Maronite_Tartous compared to a few other populations.



This is why I plot moreso along the lines of ancient Anatolian samples, and why G25 calculators are biased to give me things like "95% Cypriot 5% [Peninsular] Arab," etc— most of the samples are Lebanese Maronite or Lebanese Orthodox, who are a bit more mixed with the native Canaanite populations than we are, even though we all do have that as a significant component. I've compiled a small Imgur of my modelling troubles/fun because they are very silly honestly. I also carry a lot of alleles/have actually homozygous genotypes that are mostly found in European populations, but since what these indicate (lighter skin, light hair, colored eyes) is not that rare in my specific area of Syria amongst Christians/Shias etc, that's probably just a coastal Syrian thing really.

What matters is:
- My actual DNA markers are still in common with the mostly Lebanese Maronite sample
- I don't show any obviously weird mixture in the last few centuries, so there were not many opportunities to introduce H4a as a mtDNA haplo because of our isolation

I doubt my dad will also have a heavily European-dominated yDNA haplogroup because that would be far too much of a coincidence lol, but it would be funny. The DNA markers on tests like 23andMe I believe just suggest that I have a more "preserved" Anatolian component that comes from Maronite origins in Antioch and migration from there, and these markers are still associated w/ Lebanese Maronites despite the fact that we are slightly divergent, so I think it is not unreasonable to infer I am part of the 'original' group (I use this term very loosely) that was left behind as the majority progressed down to the Mount Lebanon region.

So yes, that's about all things vis-à-vis this topic/theory I can think of off the top of my head right now. All of these things really are just fascinating to me lmao. Today I am an Arab because I speak Arabic, I'm a citizen of the Syrian Arab Republic, but I am quite different genetically and culturally from what I think the majority of the West associates with my country and my people (dark skin, Muslim, all of those stereotypes), so I like to learn more about where my ancestors "came from" because it helps me understand how I fit into all of it.

[Leto]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559847/
H is 24% in Syria according to this study (n=234).

I totally agree with u Palestinians are very very mixed ! I've seen many Syrians that got 100% Middle East on YouTube which is also very interesting.
I guess Syrians r the purest levantine.

Lebanese Christians also score very high Levantine.

[sacha]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559847/
H is 24% in Syria according to this study (n=234).

Lebanese Christians also score very high Levantine.

H is pretty common, but H4 is pretty rare (~1-3% of H group est worldwide), mostly commonly found in Iberia, Britian, Ireland, but can occur all around Europe— it is just rare in general.

H4a: found in the Neolithic Cardium Pottery culture in Portugal and Spain, in Neolithic Scotland and southern France, in Bell Beaker Czechia and England, in EBA Czechia, and in Bronze Age Bulgaria and Latvia

H4b is the one more found in the Middle East, but I think I linked an image and I'm certainly H4a, not H4b. I mentioned H4a1 in an Egyptian mummy as well but I don't possess the mutation for that. Honestly there is barely any writing on H4, it is kind of sad

[Leto]

I'm going to use this as an opportunity to 'dump' things I did not include in the original post because I realize they are probably relevant, and also because I haven't really compiled this all in text yet so it is helpful.

I think there are two main factors that make specifically Christians in the Levant almost universally get >90% Levantine, and Maronites like me get 100% or very close to it.

1. Any injections into our gene pool are not recent— though we do marry European Christians fairly often nowadays, we spent a shitton of time in isolation from other groups. This is less so but still significant amongst those like the Greek Orthodox and Melkite (Greek Catholics), who for the most part cohabited but did not intermix with other groups, but us Maronites just straight up lived in the mountains away from everyone else. We're greatly against consanguineous relations— we have no provable problems with inbreeding/cousin marriage as a population, unlike some of our neighbors— but we're kind of our own, 'unmixed' ethnic group for the most part. You see this also with some smaller Muslim groups and the Druze, even more so in the Druze because they don't allow conversions in or out, or intermarriage. Seriously, they have chopped

2. Because of 1, we are often used as the "Levantine" samples for these types of DNA tests, so other admixture components from our history (Canaanite/Phoenician, Anatolian, Cypriot, minor Byzantine/Greek and Caucauses elements, maybe some mixed in Crusades as well) that could be theoretically identified by markers are factored into 'Levantine' populations— so obviously someone who is just like the sample will get 100%. We are still very similar to the most native modern Levant group though, the Samaritans.

I have all the normal Maronite genetic markers, but being a Syrian Maronite I have a little bit less Canaanite influence and higher Anatolian influence. I put a PCA below with me are Maronite_Tartous compared to a few other populations.



This is why I plot moreso along the lines of ancient Anatolian samples, and why G25 calculators are biased to give me things like "95% Cypriot 5% [Peninsular] Arab," etc— most of the samples are Lebanese Maronite or Lebanese Orthodox, who are a bit more mixed with the native Canaanite populations than we are, even though we all do have that as a significant component. I've compiled a small Imgur of my modelling troubles/fun because they are very silly honestly. I also carry a lot of alleles/have actually homozygous genotypes that are mostly found in European populations, but since what these indicate (lighter skin, light hair, colored eyes) is not that rare in my specific area of Syria amongst Christians/Shias etc, that's probably just a coastal Syrian thing really.

What matters is:
- My actual DNA markers are still in common with the mostly Lebanese Maronite sample
- I don't show any obviously weird mixture in the last few centuries, so there were not many opportunities to introduce H4a as a mtDNA haplo because of our isolation

I doubt my dad will also have a heavily European-dominated yDNA haplogroup because that would be far too much of a coincidence lol, but it would be funny. The DNA markers on tests like 23andMe I believe just suggest that I have a more "preserved" Anatolian component that comes from Maronite origins in Antioch and migration from there, and these markers are still associated w/ Lebanese Maronites despite the fact that we are slightly divergent, so I think it is not unreasonable to infer I am part of the 'original' group (I use this term very loosely) that was left behind as the majority progressed down to the Mount Lebanon region.

So yes, that's about all things vis-à-vis this topic/theory I can think of off the top of my head right now. All of these things really are just fascinating to me lmao. Today I am an Arab because I speak Arabic, I'm a citizen of the Syrian Arab Republic, but I am quite different genetically and culturally from what I think the majority of the West associates with my country and my people (dark skin, Muslim, all of those stereotypes), so I like to learn more about where my ancestors "came from" because it helps me understand how I fit into all of it.

Very interesting, though to me personally the Antiochian Orthodox are the best because I'm Eastern Orthodox myself. Of course this has nothing to do with the topic.

[chinshen]

H4 is not that uncommon in Middle Easterners. I have only tested with 23&me and I have mtDNA H4 haplo.
I am Assyrian with my family originating from Eastern Anatolia. I have many DNA relatives at 23&me who are mostly Assyrians and a big chunk carry mtDNA H4, but again I don't know which subclade.

When I ran my 23&me raw data thru third party calculators I got H4d plus some extra markers, I don't know how accurate this third party calculator is, see my results below:

Found 3270 markers at 3268 positions covering 19.7% of mtDNA.
Markers found (shown as differences to rCRS): HVR2: 263G 482C (523G) CR: 750G 1438G 3027C 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A 9540C HVR1: (16519C)
IMPORTANT NOTE: The above marker list is almost certainly incomplete due to limitations of genotyping technology and is not comparable to mtDNA sequencing results. It should not be used with services or tools that expect sequencing results, such as mitosearch.
Best mtDNA Haplogroup Matches:
1) H4d
Defining Markers for haplogroup H4d: HVR2: 263G 482C CR: 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A 15326G HVR1:
Marker path from rCRS to haplogroup H4d (plus extra markers): H2a2a1(rCRS) ⇨ 263G ⇨ H2a2a ⇨ 8860G 15326G ⇨ H2a2 ⇨ 750G ⇨ H2a ⇨ 4769G ⇨ H2 ⇨ 1438G ⇨ H ⇨ 3992T 5004C 9123A ⇨ H4 ⇨ 482C ⇨ H4d ⇨ (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C)
Imperfect Match. Your results contained differences with this haplogroup: Matches(9): 263G 482C 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A Extras(2): (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C) Untested(1): 15326
2) H4
Defining Markers for haplogroup H4: HVR2: 263G CR: 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A 15326G HVR1:
Marker path from rCRS to haplogroup H4 (plus extra markers): H2a2a1(rCRS) ⇨ 263G ⇨ H2a2a ⇨ 8860G 15326G ⇨ H2a2 ⇨ 750G ⇨ H2a ⇨ 4769G ⇨ H2 ⇨ 1438G ⇨ H ⇨ 3992T 5004C 9123A ⇨ H4 ⇨ 482C (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C)
Imperfect Match. Your results contained differences with this haplogroup: Matches(8): 263G 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A Extras(3): 482C (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C) Untested(1): 15326
3) H4c
Defining Markers for haplogroup H4c: HVR2: 263G CR: 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A 9276A 15326G HVR1:
Marker path from rCRS to haplogroup H4c (plus extra markers): H2a2a1(rCRS) ⇨ 263G ⇨ H2a2a ⇨ 8860G 15326G ⇨ H2a2 ⇨ 750G ⇨ H2a ⇨ 4769G ⇨ H2 ⇨ 1438G ⇨ H ⇨ 3992T 5004C 9123A ⇨ H4 ⇨ 9276A ⇨ H4c ⇨ 482C (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C)
Imperfect Match. Your results contained differences with this haplogroup: Matches(8): 263G 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A Extras(3): 482C (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C) Untested(2): 9276 15326

[sacha]

H4 is not that uncommon in Middle Easterners. I have only tested with 23&me and I have mtDNA H4 haplo.
I am Assyrian with my family originating from Eastern Anatolia. I have many DNA relatives at 23&me who are mostly Assyrians and a big chunk carry mtDNA H4, but again I don't know which subclade.

When I ran my 23&me raw data thru third party calculators I got H4d plus some extra markers, I don't know how accurate this third party calculator is, see my results below:

Found 3270 markers at 3268 positions covering 19.7% of mtDNA.
Markers found (shown as differences to rCRS): HVR2: 263G 482C (523G) CR: 750G 1438G 3027C 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A 9540C HVR1: (16519C)
IMPORTANT NOTE: The above marker list is almost certainly incomplete due to limitations of genotyping technology and is not comparable to mtDNA sequencing results. It should not be used with services or tools that expect sequencing results, such as mitosearch.
Best mtDNA Haplogroup Matches:
1) H4d
Defining Markers for haplogroup H4d: HVR2: 263G 482C CR: 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A 15326G HVR1:
Marker path from rCRS to haplogroup H4d (plus extra markers): H2a2a1(rCRS) ⇨ 263G ⇨ H2a2a ⇨ 8860G 15326G ⇨ H2a2 ⇨ 750G ⇨ H2a ⇨ 4769G ⇨ H2 ⇨ 1438G ⇨ H ⇨ 3992T 5004C 9123A ⇨ H4 ⇨ 482C ⇨ H4d ⇨ (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C)
Imperfect Match. Your results contained differences with this haplogroup: Matches(9): 263G 482C 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A Extras(2): (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C) Untested(1): 15326
2) H4
Defining Markers for haplogroup H4: HVR2: 263G CR: 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A 15326G HVR1:
Marker path from rCRS to haplogroup H4 (plus extra markers): H2a2a1(rCRS) ⇨ 263G ⇨ H2a2a ⇨ 8860G 15326G ⇨ H2a2 ⇨ 750G ⇨ H2a ⇨ 4769G ⇨ H2 ⇨ 1438G ⇨ H ⇨ 3992T 5004C 9123A ⇨ H4 ⇨ 482C (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C)
Imperfect Match. Your results contained differences with this haplogroup: Matches(8): 263G 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A Extras(3): 482C (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C) Untested(1): 15326
3) H4c
Defining Markers for haplogroup H4c: HVR2: 263G CR: 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A 9276A 15326G HVR1:
Marker path from rCRS to haplogroup H4c (plus extra markers): H2a2a1(rCRS) ⇨ 263G ⇨ H2a2a ⇨ 8860G 15326G ⇨ H2a2 ⇨ 750G ⇨ H2a ⇨ 4769G ⇨ H2 ⇨ 1438G ⇨ H ⇨ 3992T 5004C 9123A ⇨ H4 ⇨ 9276A ⇨ H4c ⇨ 482C (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C)
Imperfect Match. Your results contained differences with this haplogroup: Matches(8): 263G 750G 1438G 3992T 4769G 5004C 8860G 9123A Extras(3): 482C (523G) 3027C 9540C (16519C) Untested(2): 9276 15326

I was trying to see if I had H4a1 because there are a few occurrences of that in my area. I posted a picture of my 3rd party calculator result as well, and it was just telling me the same thing, H4a, so no luck there.

Do you have any clue as to the origin of H4d? I can't find much about it online, I am guessing it is pretty rare. All I can find is the mutation qualifications, and you have that 482C mutation. I would be interested if you had any demographics for this, I like to learn about these things haha. The fact about your relatives is pretty interesting. Do you know if all of your H4 matches Assyrian in matrilineage? I did see a few people in my extended tree with H4 but again, no clades and I think like the H4a-ites a lot of them were not totally of the same ancestry as me. We are pretty different groups, despite the fact that we are both Christian in the Middle East.

I don't want to say anything like crazy because honestly as I said I am not Super mtDNA Wizardlady [yet] but did my clade not mutate from H4 ~9000 years ago? Even though there is that same connection to H4 as a whole, does that mean anything for specifically H4a? From what I can see you have neither of the mutations ( 4024G, 14582G ) that signify relation to H4a, so despite the fact that we share the H4 branch my maternal line was still different from yours starting that long ago? Honestly I do not think there is a consensus for the original location of my subclade either, there isn't any evidence that it started in the Levant, but it would be really funny if it secretly did, and I was just overthinking it because of its modern distribution.

If there is anything I am missing please tell me, so that I don't go and embarrass myself further lmaoo. Thank you and I hope this makes sense, I abuse my word processor to make my writing sound less 'accented' so sometimes my point becomes unclear. I would love to just have more information on the demographics of our region in general, it is so very frustrating to comb through an entire haystack looking for a blunt, probably infected needle.

[chinshen]

I was trying to see if I had H4a1 because there are a few occurrences of that in my area. I posted a picture of my 3rd party calculator result as well, and it was just telling me the same thing, H4a, so no luck there.

Do you have any clue as to the origin of H4d? I can't find much about it online, I am guessing it is pretty rare. All I can find is the mutation qualifications, and you have that 482C mutation. I would be interested if you had any demographics for this, I like to learn about these things haha. The fact about your relatives is pretty interesting. Do you know if all of your H4 matches Assyrian in matrilineage? I did see a few people in my extended tree with H4 but again, no clades and I think like the H4a-ites a lot of them were not totally of the same ancestry as me. We are pretty different groups, despite the fact that we are both Christian in the Middle East.

I did not mean H4a is the same as H4d, I knew they must have both separated from H4 long ago (Thousands of years).
No, I have no clue where H4d originated from, I would like to know. But no luck, like you mentioned there is not much information on the origin of H4 or its subclades.
No, not all my H4d matches are restricted to my maternal side and I don't know if they are actually all H4d or other subclades of H4.
I agree with you that we are not necessarily related groups, just because we are both Middle Eastern Christians, my 23&me autosomal DNA show I am 100% West Asian with 98.9% Iranian, Caucasian & Mesopotamian and only 1.1% Levantine.